Shared mushroom body circuits underlie visual and olfactory memories in Drosophila

2014/08/18 by Katrin Vogt, Christopher Schnaitmann, Kristina V. Dylla +4 · 1 voice · 1 citation
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Environmental Science · Neuroscience · #Insect and Arachnid Ecology and Behavior #Neurobiology and Insect Physiology Research #Physiological and biochemical adaptations

paper · doi:10.7554/elife.02395

openalex publication_date 2014/08/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22

Abstract

In nature, animals form memories associating reward or punishment with stimuli from different sensory modalities, such as smells and colors. It is unclear, however, how distinct sensory memories are processed in the brain. We established appetitive and aversive visual learning assays for Drosophila that are comparable to the widely used olfactory learning assays. These assays share critical features, such as reinforcing stimuli (sugar reward and electric shock punishment), and allow direct comparison of the cellular requirements for visual and olfactory memories. We found that the same subsets of dopamine neurons drive formation of both sensory memories. Furthermore, distinct yet partially overlapping subsets of mushroom body intrinsic neurons are required for visual and olfactory memories. Thus, our results suggest that distinct sensory memories are processed in a common brain center. Such centralization of related brain functions is an economical design that avoids the repetition of similar circuit motifs.

Citations

• Classical conditioning and retention in normal and mutantDrosophila melanogaster
• The Mushroom Body of AdultDrosophilaCharacterized by GAL4 Drivers

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Discussions

• In my PhD days, I compared classical and operant learning in our visual learning assay🪰🔵🟢 - we found that both were impaired when blocking the Mushroom Body (Figure 5😉). Unfortunately, I never had [bsky, 5 points, 0 comments]

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